A modest proposal to slightly decrease rescues on Skyline ..

[Zé]

you don't actually have to put in a lot of miles / hours of working out, if they are real quality (i.e. you are willing to hurt)

work out 3 times a week, either uphill running / walking or hiking.

make one of them a set of 2-4 6-10 minute intervals, resting a few minutes in between. systematically and slightly increase your pace / exertion over weeks / months.

make one of them a prolonged 20-40 minute steady push. systematically increase either speed / duration over time.

make one of them a longer, 1-2 hr+ (uphill part) hike at a moderate pace, (you can talk, but not easily).

you could get a sub 4 hr skyline on that schedule...if you push yourself.

[cynthia23]

That's fascinating, Ze. Have you tested this on a true novice to see if you are really conditioning them? Maybe this is a kind of false effect. You take an already incredibly fit person (that would be you!) who could already do a speedy Skyline, maybe from a lifetime of previous aerobic activity, and then the interval training just gives him a slight edge? Could you really take a novice hiker with low (i.e. average American) level of fitness and train him for Skyline or other long hikes, without any intermediate/longer hikes? It's hard to believe.

I have tried doing interval training (I've tried nearly everything, sob ) but it hasn't seemed to really help for increasing endurance. The thing I hate about hiking is that you have to do so much of it, to do any of it.

I mean, the only thing that seems to prepare me adequately for a fifteen mile hike is a fourteen mile hike. I find this very frustrating because it's so time-consuming. Every time I've tried only short, intense (i.e. 80 to 90 percent of max. HR) hikes as prep for long, moderate ones, it hasn't been enough. Short intense hikes or runs get me to a base of conditioning, but there's something about the effort of long hikes, stride after stride after stride, hour on end, that can't be duplicated, at least for me. It's some kind of foot thing. The only thing that works for me is drearily edging up my mileage per hike until I s-l-o-w-l-y build more endurance. But this may speak more to my general athletic ineptitude. No doubt people do vary in their ability to adapt.

Really, really interested to hear from others on this. If everyone says that in fact they only train twenty minutes twice a week, and then go out and do sub-4 Skylines, I'm really going to be depressed. Or take up Extreme Ironing.

[Hikin_Jim]

Hi, Cynthia,

I think I'm with you. I've always marveled at Zé's contention that three times a week will do ya. Maybe 3x/week would do you if you were already in good shape AND you had good genes (i.e. your body could take the punishment). When I push myself, I find myself getting injured easily. Long, slow, and moderate seems to work for me.

The thing I hate about hiking is that you have to do so much of it, to do any of it.

Yep. And that's why I don't do a lot of the truly "big" hikes anymore. I just don't have time to do the conditioning hiking necessary.

HJ

[zippetydude]

Nah, Ze's right. When I first started running (I was strictly into weight lifting before, so I had little to no cardio training) I did something like what he describes. I did 3 cardio sessions per week, occasionally adding in an aerobics class at the gym for a 4th session. Each of the short, 20 to 40 minute workouts, was intense, and the long run I added 1 to 2 miles each week, only doing a very long run every other weekend. So, it went like this

Tues: 20 minutes intense
Wednesday: Occasionally only, 60 minute aerobics class, 30 of which was cardio
Thurs: 30 - 40 minutes tempo pace (kinda hard but not dying)

Saturday: 8 miles, 10 miles, 12 miles, 14 miles, 8 miles, 16 miles, 9 miles, 18 miles, 10 miles, 20 miles, 11 miles, 21 miles, 12 miles, 22 miles.

This was a lead up to my first marathon, and I took the long runs very easy (I ran with a friend and we talked the whole way).

I didn't do any specific hill work, which helps to fine tune the brain and body for Skyline, so Ze's recommendation is better. My point, though, is that he's absolutely right that your body will gain tremendously from consistent, intense, varied cardio.

z

[Hikin_Jim]

...helps to attenuate the brain...

at·ten·u·ate
VERB:
tr.
To reduce or make small: The drought attenuated the river to a narrow channel.

Excercise is going to reduce my brain??!?

(Of course this might explain a lot of the posts on this forum)

HJ

[zippetydude]

Must be what's happened to me too. I was using it more in the sense in which it is used in electronics - reducing the signal strength with no increase in distortion, as in less perceived exertion with no loss in performance. Granted, a rather figurative use. The more common use, as in employing an attenuated virus in a vaccine, was not my intent. Perhaps "fine tune" or "acclimate" would be preferable.

Too bad it doesn't seem to have the "to make slender" effect on me!

z

[Hikin_Jim]

less perceived exertion with no loss in performance.

Now that would be nice.

The trouble with excercise is that you have to be in shape for it...

HJ

[Zé]

That's fascinating, Ze. Have you tested this on a true novice to see if you are really conditioning them? Maybe this is a kind of false effect. You take an already incredibly fit person (that would be you!) who could already do a speedy Skyline, maybe from a lifetime of previous aerobic activity, and then the interval training just gives him a slight edge? Could you really take a novice hiker with low (i.e. average American) level of fitness and train him for Skyline or other long hikes, without any intermediate/longer hikes? It's hard to believe.

I have tried doing interval training (I've tried nearly everything, sob ) but it hasn't seemed to really help for increasing endurance. The thing I hate about hiking is that you have to do so much of it, to do any of it. .

well actually I think on beginners most anything would work, as long as they do it consistently... and I wouldn't push them too hard for a while until that get through a lot of the initial adaptations. I am thinking more of the intermediate - advanced. Sure, the 99.99% elite are going to need more volume and hours of slow & steady to squeeze out the final % increase in economy (like bdog), but that's extreme diminishing returns.

When I mention "intervals" I don't mean the 30s- 1min sort, which largely can be adapted to in a month and have only a small effect afterword. I mean separating out a 20-40 min workout into shorter segments that are still long enough to demand a large amount of oxygen consumption for at least 3-4 minutes (first few minutes will be more anaerobic).

In terms of how they improve long hikes, well they won't do enough directly, but they will help the intermediate hike (30-40 min), and the intermediate will help both the intervals and the long hike. And the long hike will help the long duration and the intermediate.

Think on a log scale (as that's how energy systems are used), a 10 minute interval at a pace you can barely sustain is as "far" away from a 40 minute hike at a pace you can barely sustain for its length, as the 40 minute is from the 2.5 hour uphill hike at the equivalent pace that can be sustained.

Those 3 workouts equally span a good amount of the endurance spectrum, working the anerobic/aerobic complex, pure carb burning aerobic, and fat/carb burning aerobic.

So in a 2.5 hour uphill hike you'll get in say 2500-4500 ft elevation gain, eventually working up to the latter number. that's putting you at about 1/2 the elevation gain of skyline, which would be more than sufficient to get a quick time (of course doing a 4 hr hike would be more optimal).

But that workout still comes down to the intensity / pain you are willing to put in. Certainly you can't do everyworkout at an all out intensity, but ensuring once a week one of those workouts is trying to push faster than the last, you'll be good.

There has to be methodical change in how much you are pushing. One may improve 1% in pace from a previous workout, but if you just go and hike to "feeling", you can't be that accurate. You may go 5% faster, which isn't sustainable and you'll burn out. So the shorter workouts are probably better controlled on a treadmill and /or have hearrtate monitor / gps.

And those shorter workouts can have more slow & steady components of hiking / or any other activity, but only after the important stuff is done.

Of course you can also build conditioning with lots of long and steady without as much pain, but it takes a lot more time. So it's a pain vs time give and take.

[cynthia23]

Thank you for this thoughtful reply, Ze. I can see your point that one problem in conditioning for hiking is controlling/knowing the exact intensity at which you're hiking. I do use a HR monitor--at least when the number is reasonable. When it gets above 100 percent I sometimes turn it off cuz I would just prefer not to know. But I can see how this could still be an imprecise way of measuring my exertion, given that I'm not hiking the same route all the time. And I'm fairly sloppy about keeping track of what I'm doing.

Still, although I know this is your area of expertise, it's hard for me to believe three relatively short work-outs a week would be enough to prepare someone for a long hike--no matter how aerobically intense your training was. Never mind doing a speedy (i.e. sub 4) Skyline; I'm just thinking any old Skyline. It seems to me that in addition to training the CVS, there is some kind of muscular-skeletal issue here, just in keeping your skeleton upright and legs moving for seven or eight hours. Or, for that matter, your feet! When I think of all the stabiizer muscles there, it seems to me those can only gradually build their strength. I could never seamlessly transition from training on two to four hour hikes to an eight hour hike. Along with HJ, I just seem to have to slowly build up my ability to simply stay standing. My usual methodology is to hike three days a week, basically with one short intense hike (like the Desert Museum/Ramon loop), one moderate intensity longer hike (like the South Lykken loop, about nine miles), and one longer hike, like going partly up Skyline, gradually building my hours and mileage until I'm going at least to 5 or 6k and/or afoot for seven or eight hours (including time coming back down, of course--it doesn't take even me eight hours to get to 5k!) That's the point I feel 'safe' to transition to going all the way. I also lift weights three days a week to build muscle strength. Recently I started adding a little running. All of this is too time-consuming. So I"ll certainly try being more precise in my training measurements and using more intervals. It can only help, I'm sure.

Now I'm really, really curious to hear from others on how (much) they train. It sounds like Fern and Bluerail (I'm not even sure how to translate all those vertical miles into something I can comprehend) are in the high mileage camp, you and Zip in the 'keep it short and scientific?" Can others tell us their training methods?

Maybe I'm wandering off topic on my own thread--except that if some people don't actually train a lot of miles, my numerical scale method won't work. Maybe we should skip all this math stuff and just dub some people with a big "S" for Superman?

[Sally]

My training schedule:
Monday I go to the gym and do stairmaster intensly for 1/2 hour, then the climbing eleptical for another 1/2 hour. Sometimes I do weights.
Tuesday I rest up for Wednesday.
Wednesday I hike 15 to 20 miles, 5000 to 8000 ft gain.
Thursday I rest.
Friday I'm back at the gym on stairmaster and eliptical.
Saturday and/or Sunday I run 4 1/2 miles on a very hilly route.

My typical Skyline is 6 hours, but I did it in 5 1/2 once.
Ellen is a sweetheart and accompanies me on my Wednesday hikes. I barely keep up with her. She could easily leave me in a cloud of dust if she wanted to!